Obama To Use $8 Billion Of Taxpayer's Money To Wage War On Coal, Leaving Thousands Unemployed

In Obama's War on Coal is a War on America, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) President Mike Duncan indicated 280 coal-fired generated units could close in the coming years due to strict environmental regulations already in place. Obama's war on coal has claimed two victims.

High costs associated with stricter federal environmental regulations and increased competition for low-priced natural gas have shut down two coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania.

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FirstEnergy Corp. will close the coal plants by October 9, according to Reuters, due to weak power prices.

Another factor is the high cost of complying with the Environmental Protection agency's Mercury Air Toxin Standards or MATS, which would require the company to spend $275 million at the two plants.

Reuters indicated FirstEnergy, in a federal filing, said it would recognize an impairment charge of about $488 million ($321 million after tax) in the second quarter of 2013 for the shutdowns. In a release by FirstEnergy, the plants scheduled to shutdown are Hatfields Ferry in Masontown and Mitchell in Courtney. The shutdown of these two plants will affect about 380 employees.

Together, the company said the plants could generate 2,080 megawatts, about 10 percent of its total capacity. One megawatt can power about 1,000 homes.

Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, about 15,000 MW of coal-fired power plants have closed as low electricity and natural gas prices have made it uneconomical for generating companies to upgrade those facilities to keep up with the government's stricter environmental rules.

Those generating companies have also announced plans to shut more than 37,000 MW of coal-fired units over the next 10 years or so.

FirstEnergy said it expected to invest about $650 million in mercury-related control technology to enhance or modify existing air quality equipment or install new equipment on its remaining facilities.

After these upgrades, FirstEnergy said it expected to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides by 84 percent, sulfur dioxide by 95 percent and mercury by 91 percent below 1990 levels. In addition, the company expects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

According to Kentucky Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield, "[Obama] is personally responsible for the loss of thousands of jobs. He obviously does not have much interest in states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Wyoming, where the coal industry is so vitally important and we are losing jobs dramatically."

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told Reuters the president "expects fossil fuels, and coal specifically to remain a contributor for some time. Moniz indicated the way the US administration is "looking at it is: what does it take for us to do to make coal part of a low carbon future" adding this would include higher efficiency plants and new ways or utilizing coal. Moniz said he didn't believe it was a war on coal, but that in fact, it was all about having coal as part of that future.

An $8 billion loan guarantee program for projects to develop new technologies that help cut emissions of fossil fuels would include carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) as "one of a number of options," he said.

"It will also include some advanced technologies for using coal very different from today's technologies that will enable much less expensive carbon capture in future," Moniz said.

CCS is a relatively new, expensive and unproven technology that captures carbon dioxide and buries it.

In previous articles, the global warming crisis was reported to be scientifically inconclusive and possibly a myth. Now, the Obama administration will implement an $8 billion loan guarantee program for projects that include carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), which is relatively new, expensive and unproven, for projects that help cut emissions of fossil fuels. Can you say "money pit?" Didn't Solyndra receive funding for "green energy" development and then go bankrupt?

The sheer irresponsibility of this administration in mismanaging taxpayer money is astounding and disgraceful. What is almost as bad are the sheeple who nod, cheer and almost worship in an idolatrous fashion the man who literally throws money into curbing global warming – an unproven theory. What's worse is the voice of reason from the public and other scientific sources are drowned out: smothered by the left's tactics of discrediting, labeling and name calling.

Mob rule has arrived; the mob has demonstrated unruliness. If the left can't drown the voice of reason, Obama usurps power, ignoring information not conducive to his plan, by assuming a dictatorial, tyrannical stance then issues executive orders to continue to pound America into the ground. He cares not if jobs are lost or if an entire industry is affected as long as his narcissism is satisfied. America can no longer feed this narcissism. Obama is eating us out of house and home.

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About the AuthorSuzanne Hamner

Suzanne Hamner (pen name) is a registered nurse, grandmother of 4, and a political independent residing in the state of Georgia, who is trying to mobilize the Christian community in her area to stand up and speak out against tyrannical government, invasion by totalitarian political systems masquerading as religion and get back to the basics of education.

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